Pierre-Yves Lanthier's Reviews
Ara Fell is a phenomenal RPG that I could only have wished to have back on the SNES. With brand new ideas in order to explore rich environments combined with a smooth and refined battle system, there’s no shortage of places for Lita and her party to see.
Zombasie is loads of fun, regardless of what some of your clan members think. It has loads of quests that don’t run out causing you to exit and re-load the same areas over and over. Instead things feel more organic and as time goes by things become tougher as the world levels around you, the Zombie threat becomes more serious, and that moment of absolute dread is always potentially around the corner. As much as I’ve loved a lot of the other Hack and Slashes, none have been able to provide that on-going feeling of progress that Zombasite can provide. Never having to “quit and reload”, never “running out of things”, those are huge additions to this style. The time spend in Early Access was time well spent and Soldak Entertainment have aced this one.
MeiQ: The Labyrinth of Death is an awesome Dungeon Crawling RPG that is great to sit down to for hours at a time either on the Vita or the PSTV. With fun and quirky characters to awesome customization systems there’s more than enough fun to go around the multiple dungeons that these Machina Mages will needs to explore with their Guardians in order to restart the planet’s core.
Regular readers of our site know what a tremendous fan I was of Dragon Quest Builders. It was Dragon Quest with the best parts of being able to build through an open concept voxel world. Portal Knights is exactly this in concept, though it shifts points of emphasis. Here we have less story, more combat, and the ability to share in the fun with others.
Cursed with immortality in the form of a thorny rose on her back, one girl will need to find her way through a broken castle that she used to call home. She will not do so all alone however, with a giant at her side. Only by working together can these two make it from one location to the next, as each will have need of one another's abilities to make it through the trials ahead.
If Nox and Magicka had a baby, Mages of Mystralia would be it. Fun, easy to get into, it won’t take long before you are swinging magic like a pro as you guide Zia on her adventure, crafted by Ed Greenwood and the team from Borealys Games from Montreal.
“Don’t get greedy.” Wiser words from my younger brother have never been more true. These are truly words to live by as unlike the Souls series that it takes inspiration from, Immortal Planet follows some of the tenants of the creator’s earlier title of Ronin which is a turned based platformer that involved plenty of thinking before committing to actions. How did that line of thought transfer over to an adventure hack and slash? Very well.
Original Journey is an interesting beast that doesn’t show it claws until you are several hours in and then realize: it’s been several hours. Taking the best parts of a side scrolling shooter and a Roguelike, welcome to the end of an alien race’s time as they perform their last ditch effort in order to not perish and become another of the galaxy’s footnotes.
Bear With Me from Exordium Games has just seen the launch of its third and final chapter. Taking a look at the entire series, the one clear fact in this 1950’s Noir-esque adventure is that the presentation and the writing are superb making it hard to remember at times that it’s all about a ten year old girl and her teddy bear looking for her brother that went missing and filling the rest with imagination.
Between a well built Turn Based Tactical System and a great exploration base that allows for quicker or longer play session, Bulwark Studios have created a solid experience with Mechanicus. Upping the ante somewhat is that I think Bulwark Studios may have also designed a Warhammer title to make even Robert happy!
The inclusion of this new content is a great addition if you want to start off from scratch and use it to your benefit. While the new class may be a bit harder to incorporate into your battle plans halfway through your exploration or crusade on the planet below, the battles on your own ship are timed perfectly as you should definitely have the gear and your Tech Priests loaded with enough firepower to show to those that defected that it was a bad idea to piss you off.
Ion Fury is fantastic. Fast paced old-schooled smooth as silk gameplay, it’s both amazing to play today while perfectly reminding me of gaming on a PC that required me to boot Windows 3.1 through DOS. If there’s one shooter that you should play this year, it’s this one!
So as long as you don’t game over because the clock went and struck twelve, MistOver will keep you busy for a lot of hours. Hell, even if you wipe out and decide to go at it all over again, MistOver is worth it. MistOver is honestly a dungeon crawler that fans should look into even if they have a fear with permadeath for characters. Even if they die off, you keep the gear, cursed, but you keep it and slap it onto the next replacement that you’ve hired as a just in case things went south. With plenty of quests, boss fights and environments to explore, the mist awaits you!
So overall, JackBox Games Party Pack 6 is a great addition to the series with plenty of new additions to suit multiple moods to a night amongst family and / or friends. From Murder Trivia making a return to new cheesy things like Joke Boat, and it stands alone just as easily as it stands alongside the other five party boxes.
So overall, while it may not have the same expansive storyline of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is a solid experience which adds some neat quality of life features to the base title that came out over a year ago. Adding in just a few new characters was neat, but it’s the ability to change magics and the smoothness of the experience that really takes the show making the Ultimate add-on a worthy pick up to the original title.
Overall, Big Ant Studios and Bigben Interactive’s AO Tennis 2 is a great title. With the only real issue being the load times, playing either singles or doubles for any amount of time whether a quick set or a couple of them is great fun either against the CPU, your friends, or the scary people online that make things look way too easy like Ryouma in the Prince of Tennis.
So overall, especially for fans of dungeon crawlers, Conglomerate 451 is worth it. With plenty of missions with different objectives to keep you going and tons of research to make better and better versions of your squads, taking a city back from evil corporations will keep you both entertained and occupied for quite a while.
Dread Nautical was simply amazing to sit down to. The turned based elements mesh perfectly with the Roguelike setting that has been presented through a cruise ship stuck somewhere out there in the high seas. With plenty of possible party members, tons of replayability, and simply just being fun to play, I can only hope to see more of this down the line and maybe a Dread Nautical inspired Pinball Machine.
So overall, Biped is an amazing coop experience for you and someone else. The stages are fun, the levels are appropriately challenging, and the graphics are super cute with fun music to add to the atmosphere. Being on the Switch also helps for you to bring it along as long as you’re being safe in the current climate that we find ourselves in with Social Distancing.
If you’ve been on the lookout for a good side-scrolling action adventure, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is worth looking into. Between the flexible combat system and the puzzle platforming, you have an interesting small scale farming simulator that only adds to the overall sense of accomplishment as it replaces most standard RPG experience level systems. Add in some humorous dialog and likable characters, and I think I found either my guilty pleasure or my pleasant surprise for the year!